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From Gossip Girl to The Kite Runner a completely updated look at the history of censorship in world literature.

Praise for the previous editions: "A must-have for all of us who enjoy the right to choose what we read." Nadine Strossen, President, American Civil Liberties Union

Throughout history, nations, peoples, and governments have censored writers and their works on political, religious, sexual, and social grounds. Although the literary merit of the majority of these books has been proven time and time again, censorship efforts are still in place today. From Animal Farm to The Grapes of Wrath, The Koran to The Talmud, Ulysses to the Harry Potter series, The Canterbury Tales to The Bell Jar, this revised edition examines the many struggles these books faced in order to be read.

Tracing the censorship histories of 120 works from across the world, 120 Banned Books, Second Edition provides a summary of each work, its censorship history, and suggestions for further reading. Many new titles have been added to reflect some of the controversies in recent years, and updates have been made to existing entries on such classic books as Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird.

New entries include:

-The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie (banned on social grounds) -The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (banned on religious grounds) -Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea (banned on political grounds) -Gossip Girl series by Cecily von Ziegesar (banned on sexual grounds) -His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman (banned on religious grounds) -The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (banned on social grounds) -and many more.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

""A must-have for all of us who enjoy the right to choose what we read."
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Nicholas J. Karolides is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls. His previous books include Celebrating Censored Books and Censored Books: Critical Viewpoints.

Margaret Bald has been a freelance journalist and foreign correspondent, research director of the National Writers Union, managing editor of World Press Review magazine, and an editorial consultant to the United Nations.

Dawn B. Sova teaches English at Montclair State University. Her previous books for Facts On File/Checkmark Books include Banned Plays and Forbidden Films.

Karolides, Bald, and Sova are the authors of 100 Banned Books and the 4-volume Banned Books set, both from Facts On File/Checkmark Books. (edited by author)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

In "120 Banned Books" the authors pull together a collection of books that have been banned at some point in history for Political, Religious, Sexual, and/or Social grounds.

I found this book very interesting in two ways. First, it offers a nice synopsis of 120 books, a few of which are somewhat obscure. And as it is unlikely that many have read all of these, this book provides enough information, along with Amazon reviews, of course ;), about the subject books for the reader to make the decision about investing the time to read it.

Following each book synopsis is a short history of when, where, why, etc that book was banned. I will admit that, after a few dozen times, I got tired of which local school board voted to remove a book from a reading list or library shelf. The local school board bannings are generally motivated by someone in the community finding a book offensive or insulting or age-inappropriate. And with the political correctness/hypersensitivity of today, I am only suprised that we do not see a vastly increasing number of complaints for various left- and right- of center reasons.

But I DID find the discussions of book bans at the national level quite interesting. The read can see how some governments through history have attempted control the thoughts of the citizens by controlling the printed material (and other media as well, of course) available. This book includes examples from all over the world and is very interesting.

Came across this book at a university library. Given the title and subject matter, had to read it. All in all, a good read. Books that have been banned across the world are divided into four categories or "grounds" for banning: political, religious, sexual, social. I was surprised to see quite a number of books on this list that were from my high school English classes.

If anything, this 540-page tome can tend to get a bit tiresome when it comes to details regarding censorship activities. Certain books are singled out by one parent, which leads to a cascade of committee reviews by district school boards, and frequently involving lawsuits. As one person noted in this book, attempts at banning books frequently lead to failure. And besides, if children really want to get their hands on a particular book, in this day and age, they readily can.

Perhaps the most surprising thing was how, even in the 21st century, there are still attempts to ban books in America.

FYI, the full text of this book is currently available on the Internet.